Human Rights and Civil Liberties

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the decision of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, to have this very important debate, and I am pleased also to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lexden.

I have not made any notes today because I wanted to speak in a personal capacity. First, I must declare an interest as a co-founder of Stonewall. I do not understand why the Government are taking this approach to the Human Rights Act, which has worked magnificently for 15 years, with the consequence that if we adopt the proposals the Government outlined in 2014, we could very well move away from the European Convention on Human Rights. That has consequences beyond human rights, which some noble Lords may well welcome. Indeed, it would perhaps prohibit us from remaining a member of the European Union.

I cite the European Union for a very good reason—because the Council of Europe, which Churchill took great pride in, the European convention and our Human Rights Act all stem from an amazing point in history: the end of the Second World War. The founders of a new Europe looked across Europe and stated that what happened should never happen again. The convention, the Council of Europe and the European Union were quite literally born out of the ashes of the Second World War, the ashes of peoples’ hopes and dreams and, yes, the ashes from concentration camps dotted across Europe.

We have seen the least favoured defended—people like me in the 1980s, having no rights as a gay man—through Stonewall and through courageous individuals pursuing their cause, literally dragging their cases through the courts of the United Kingdom to prove that they could go to the court in Strasbourg and achieve a judgment. That is one of the reasons why I can now stand in the United Kingdom and almost enjoy equality. Sadly, simply because of their sexual orientation and somebody else’s religious belief, people in Northern Ireland cannot enjoy those same rights. The jurisprudence we have gained from the European Court of Human Rights is what our rights here are based on.

It is good to see the Minister in his place. I owe him an apology because I talked about these issues in the debate on the gracious Speech on 1 June but was not in my place for his winding-up speech. Subsequently, as I hope noble Lords expect good East End boys to do, I wrote him a letter of apology. In his winding-up speech he referred to the fact that we do not need Strasbourg in order to achieve rights. That is absolutely correct. We need Strasbourg when Governments do not want to give those rights and when Governments believe that equality is inappropriate for certain individuals or sections of society. The Conservative Government could introduce equal marriage in the other place precisely because of the courage of organisations and individuals who had gone through our courts and to Strasbourg in order to achieve jurisprudence and a judgment upon which the Government could decide to act, or not to act. In the early 1990s, when the European Court of Human Rights gave its judgment that the ban on lesbians and gays serving in the military was wrong, the Government, quite rightly, could have merely noted the judgment and continued with the ban. They chose to do the right thing and recognise the judgment.

Here I come to one of the central points of the Motion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace: the challenges. One of the biggest challenges is the misinformation and disinformation about the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, largely purveyed, I am saddened to say, through our newspapers and the reactions of some politicians. The reaction of politicians, from all political parties, to the judgment on the blanket ban on prisoners having the vote was shameful. It was misrepresented as Strasbourg once again interfering with a sovereign parliament. However, it is up to Parliament to accept the judgment or not; it is Parliament that decides to change its laws, or not.

Before I conclude, I thank noble Lords for indulging me today. For me, this is personal as well as political. As I have often said in this House—I believe that I even said it in my maiden speech—I am an atheist, although someone pointed out to me that perhaps I am a recovering Catholic. What I have to do, as a human rights defender, is always defend the other—defend the right to religious belief and defend the right to difference, because if I do not, how on earth can I ever expect anyone to defend me? Great democracies, beacons of democracy such as the United Kingdom, are such because we have had the courage to speak externally for the rights of others and internally for minorities. All great democracies are judged not by how they treat their majority but by how they treat their minorities—the least favoured, even someone who wants to use the Human Rights Act to escape deportation. Is it not better that we have a handful of cases where there is an abuse of law, rather than see a majority denied access to justice and access to law and equality?

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, mentioned the international aspects. I am deeply worried that what we do in these Houses will give succour to those who thought that they could use teargas and shoot rubber bullets at the gay parade in Istanbul last week, or members of the junta in Burma who feel it is absolutely right openly to condemn people merely because of their sexual orientation.

These arguments have been going on for not just the past century, but centuries. I will perhaps commit a small theatrical blasphemy by paraphrasing William Shakespeare, who co-wrote a brilliant play called “Thomas More”. Thomas More is called to the Tower of London as the citizens of London are rebelling because the “strangers” have made their way from Calais to Dover. He comes out, and with one hand quells the mob—if only we politicians could do the same—saying, “You bid that they be removed? The stranger, with their children upon their back, their belongings at their side, their family around them. Imagine you are the ‘stranger’ with your children upon your back, your family at your side, your belongings at your feet. Imagine that you are the stranger and then bid that they be removed—and show your mountainish inhumanity”. Now is the time for all of us to speak against inhumanity and in defence of human rights.